


Oolong Tea

by Gothams_Only_Wolf



Series: Tea Lovers Association [17]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, How Tendo Met the Becket Boys, I Don't Even Know, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-21
Updated: 2014-06-21
Packaged: 2018-02-05 16:05:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1824265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gothams_Only_Wolf/pseuds/Gothams_Only_Wolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tale of Tendo and the brothers Becket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Oolong Tea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pickleplum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pickleplum/gifts), [knightphoenix2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightphoenix2/gifts).



> I thought we needed a bit of a flashback fic so I'm doing this one. I was actually a bit stuck when it came to the next Tea and this one got pulled forward. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> * * *

**-February 21, 2018-**

Raleigh yawned into his oatmeal, scrubbing at his eyes as he steadied Yancy. Patrol had been particularly brutal with the howling gale force winds and hindered even further by the ice-floes they had to step around with seals on them. 

**Ugh. I hate drawing the short straw.** Yancy complained mentally, way too tired to even form physical words. 

_Brawler Yukon's out right now and Sergio's got a cold. How do you think they feel?_ he counters with a small nudge. 

**As miserable as we are? Mmm, I could use some sleep.**

"Beckets, have you-Oh man. Nasty patrol?" Tendo sympathized as he sat next to them with his four cups of coffee. He's sorely tempted to steal one from his friend but a pitiful look might take care of that. 

"Yeah." Raleigh's throat is raw from barely being awake at all. "We'll file our report when we're a little more, y'know, awake." 

"Raleigh, you can quit the puppy face. I am completely-Okay, okay. Geez. You practice that in the mirror?" Tendo hands over a single cup and Raleigh shares with his brother, the latter more aware of his surrounding after a few precious sips. 

"Nah, Tendo, years of goddamn practice. He pulled it with our donor before he perfected it on Charlie an' me." Yancy grumbled as he stabbed his still steaming scrambled eggs to shovel them into his mouth. "Maman alone was immune." 

"Seriously?" 

"Yup. Mom always knew when to put her tiny but ferocious foot down." Raleigh chuckled softly as he used Yancy's shoulder as a makeshift pillow. "We gotta catch up some time. Too damned busy lately." 

"Ha. Yeah. Get some sleep and maybe I can share some of my stash and give you the particularly juicy bits of gossip." Tendo winked, ruffled both of their hair and smiled around the rim of his second cup. 

"We'd like that. Downtime's good." Yancy hums as he sets his chin on Raleigh's completely messy hair. 

"Mmm-hmm."

* * *

After several hours of undisturbed rest, Raleigh stumbles out of the top bunk only to blink at the sight of Tendo curled up outside their door with a San Francisco Giants baseball bat in his hands. 

"Hmm." He closes the door silently (thanks to judicious use of the WD-40 Charlie had sent from Base) and taps his chin. Making up his mind, Raleigh starts digging around for the minuscule coffee stash they keep just for Tendo. He sets the French press down and boils the water as he picks Tendo up in a fireman's lift to settle him on the couch. The bat is replaced with the Reckoner plushie Tendo left behind last time they'd had a sleepover. Yancy wraps around him from behind, pillowing his head on Raleigh's shoulder with a happy hum. 

"Why's Tendo on our couch again?" Yancy mumbles into Raleigh's sleep shirt. 

"He fell asleep guarding our door with a baseball bat. Can't be comfortable at his age sleeping in funny positions." 

"'M only twenty-six, you jerk." comes the muffled protest from the couch.

"You could get a crick in your neck and despite what you think, Tendo, we need your happy ass in LOCCENT and relatively well enough to track Kaiju." he chides as he turns on the gas for pancakes, snagging the ingredients from the mini-fridge as he talks. 

"Everything would fall apart without me. They could fire me and I'd be rehired in less than a week, brother." Tendo snorts dryly as he reaches for the mug offered to him. "Mmm, liquid life." 

"Your face looks like you've found the fountain of youth." Yancy chuckled as he peeled away from Raleigh to fix his own cup of coffee. 

" _Brawler_ got in late and we shut down for the night; Russians were up and ready to go." Tendo explains after drinking the rest of his scalding coffee and going back for seconds. "They wanted to wake you up and I planted myself in front of your door to deter the bastards." 

"Thanks. We needed that sleep more than they needed a Jaeger. If we're not fully functional then the damn Jaeger's practically useless." 

_Well, Yan, maybe not. You noticed that memo?_

**Oh yeah. Haven't we been gettin' double-drag the last couple of patrols?** Yancy murmured as he pulled Raleigh's memory of the official memo from last October. 

_Mmm-hmm. I think our Jaeger might pass the Turing test soon._ he hummed, showing Yancy the times where Gipsy seemed to heat up on extra frigid patrols. 

**What?**

_She's gonna be sentient sooner or later bro._ Raleigh sighs and then Yancy gets it. 

**Seriously?** The mix of awe and joy made him smile softly. 

_It's already happened to at least one of the Mark I Jaegers, maybe even more. The OS for the Jaegers is based in the coding for the Mark Is so... Gips might wake up. It's somethin' Hermann an' I were throwing around before he left._ he offers the conversation as a memory. Yancy hums in understanding. 

"Uh, guys? Hello?" Tendo drew them out of their link when he waved his hand in front of their faces. 

"Sorry, Tendo. We zone out occasionally. Ghost-Drift stuff, y'know." he apologizes as he mixes the dry ingredients for the pancakes. "It's not easy separating Yancy from Raleigh and the longer we do it, the more we take on each other's traits."

"Yeah. I noticed that. When you two were Cadets, you were good but not to the point where you are now with the synced-up steps." Tendo laughs as Yancy sits down and cradles his coffee with care. "It'd be a little uncanny if I hadn't met you two before you were Gipsy's pilots." 

"Mmm, that was a good day. Weren't some of the special blueberries pickin' on you?" Raleigh's brows furrowed as he remembered the day. 

"You mean the jerks who were threatening me because I wasn't too keen on joining them?" Tendo snorted as he leaned back on the couch. 

"Yeah." Yancy smirks because, well, it had been a good day. 

**-November 24, 2016-**

After Raleigh had rescued Hermann from the black ice, he and Yancy had come across something that technically wasn't allowed. The other pilot Cadets (three guys and a girl) were harassing a much smaller guy with the LOCCENT patch on his shoulder. 

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?!" Yancy was the one who barked out the challenge, both of them marching straight over to the others. Sometimes it helped being six feet tall and having a militaristic bearing about you. 

"Nothing's going on here, Beckets." one of them mumbles. 

Raleigh straightens his shoulders and cracks his neck, "You sure about that?" 

Yancy grins while cracking his knuckles, loose-limbed and waiting for one of them to pull the first punch. Everyone knew that both of them had taken to the Kwoon easier because they were scrappy fighters. "Maybe you might wanna go, y'know, save yourself the trouble of the Marshal for harassment." 

"What, you gonna rat us out?"

"Damn straight." Raleigh growls as he reaches between them to tap the guy's shoulder. "C'mon."

"Can't let you do that, Becket. He's got a mouth on 'im. Thinks he's better than us pilots." the guy wouldn't pay attention to the signs but the LOCCENT guy tensed under Raleigh's hand. 

"Oh shut up. We aren't going to be pilots until another Jaeger's ready, you idiot." Yancy quipped sarcastically, his stance almost taunting. The first punch was easily dodged considering the way it was telegraphed throughout the guy's frame. Raleigh encouraged the LOCCENT Cadet to crouch as he elbowed the second guy in the solar plexus. 

"Stay down for now." he muttered as he ducked the haymaker and missed the left hook, the girl's fist driving into his ribs. He grunted as he gripped her wrist and twisted her arm until it dislocated. Yancy knocked out the first guy with a calculated kick to the head and rounded on the second guy. The girl hissed through her teeth, backing off and running but not before Raleigh memorized her nametape. Raleigh turned for the third guy but he also was bolting away. Yancy put a choke-hold on the second one and the guy turned purple before passing out. 

"Rals, you okay?" Yancy panted in French, lowering the idiot to the ground out flat next to his pal. 

"I'm fine. More worried about the guy we rescued from a beating." he snorts as he helps the guy up. Raleigh switches to English to reassure the guy. "Hi. You okay?"

"I'm fine. Got a bit roughed up but nothing I can't recover from, brother." the man shrugs as he brushes off the snow. 

"Raleigh Becket an' that's my brother Yancy." he introduces himself and his brother easily with a roguish grin. 

"Tendo Choi. Does that happen a lot around here?" Tendo asked as straightened his shirt and jacket, pulling a comb out of his back pocket to comb his hair back into place. 

"Nah. Those guys have been causin' trouble for the Program for a while now. This is just the excuse the Instructor needed to boot 'em. You sure you're okay?" Raleigh asks as Tendo sways dangerously to the side. 

"They smacked my head against the wall." he slurs carefully, his words tumbling together so that Raleigh has to listen closely. 

"Okay, time for Med Bay." Yancy scooped the guy up and Raleigh tapped his cheek to keep him awake. 

"Hey, Tendo, where you from?" he asks, knowing that if Tendo goes unconscious he might not wake up again. 

"San Francisco." 

"Any family?" Tendo shakes his head no and winces at the pull on the bloodied skin on his forehead. "Favorite food?"

"Dango. Comes on little sticks. Dim sum but only if my Yeye made it." the man probably realizes what Raleigh's doing and is trying to keep up. 

"Mine's hot-chocolate cake made by my Mémé. What about sports?" 

"San Fran teams all the way, brother. You name it and we had it." Tendo lolls in Yancy's firm grip and they share a look over the man's head. Raleigh continues his questions as Yancy picks up his speed. "You?"

"Me? Alaskan born and bred, Tendo. Same with Yan and my sister."

"Is she pretty?" 

"Uhh, I guess. Black hair, blue eyes and, uh, a good figure. Do we have to talk about Jazzy?" he mutters uncomfortably. 

"I like to flirt. She sounds pretty." Yancy and Raleigh bristled silently so Raleigh changed the subject. 

"Mmm. Uhhh, favorite drink."

"Coffee. Used to not like it but Yeye did and I enjoyed the quiet time with him as he got older. Damn Kaiju Blue got him." Tendo growled as they set foot in the Bay.

"We just had the idiots who thought it would be good to mess with the pair of you-Oh. Hello, Mr. Choi. How are you feeling?" The Doctor on-call started speaking before she spotted Tendo and her expression softened minutely. 

"Bad. These guys are pretty cool. Kept me awake, y'know." the amusing thing was that he gestured casually while still in Yancy's arms. 

"They did? Well, Cadets, good job. You can set Mr. Choi down now." Yancy reluctantly sets the man down and he lurches over to the side of the bed and vomits. "Intern! Mess to clean! Pick him back up." She wiped off Tendo's face carefully with a clean cloth. Raleigh picked him up this time and slowly paced the length of the Med Bay, continuing to ask low questions until Tendo's eyes fluttered shut. 

"Umm, he closed his eyes." he called back to the Doctor. Raleigh gently sets Tendo on a clean bed and tucks the sheets around him, at a loss for what to do; his mother-henning instinct is kicking in.

"From what I managed to get before he yarped, he's not in the clear yet. How willing are you two to stay here and wake him up every two hours?" she asks quietly.

"Gotta get the-" Yancy started to point out that they needed their Instructor's permission only to get cut off. 

"Done. Not many would do a kindness nowadays, boys. You're something else." she states as she casts an experienced eye over Tendo. "Sit. Relax. I know they drive you all to exhaustion." Both of them do as they're ordered and take two seats next to the LOCCENT Officer. When the timer the Doctor set up goes off, Yancy shakes Tendo awake and checks his pupils. 

"Hey. Didn't think you guys would stay." Raleigh feeds Tendo ice-chips with a shrug. 

"Eh. We stuck around because you had to be rocked to sleep in our arms. The second we set you down, you vomited and a poor intern had to clean it up." Yancy teased lightly, a small smile tugging his lips up. 

It'd been a while since Raleigh'd even seen that much from his brother. Their deadbeat donor had left them in the lurch and even Uncle Charlie couldn't bring back his brother's smile. Maybe it was a good thing they'd stumbled across Tendo at just the right time. Yancy liked to poke fun of Raleigh's habit of picking up strays but he was just as bad if not worse because he would always keep in contact with the human ones. 

"What?"

"Ask the Doc when you're a little more awake." 

"Mmkay." Tendo rolls back over and curls into a ball, out within seconds. Yancy and Raleigh end up scootching their chairs together so that they can prop their feet on the arms rests. 

"Two rescues in two days. I think that's a record." he comments quietly, his mind mapping out exits and the intricate details of The Icebox Shatterdome that they'd passed. "This is good, y'know, for us."

"The pay helps cause it's decent." Yancy remarks as he tilts his head back to examine the Med Bay ceiling. 

"I mean, what were we going to do if there were no Kaiju?" he knows the question's one they've tossed back and forth quite often if they hadn't aced the tests from the beginning. 

"Probably doin' tours for rich people or somethin' as natives of Alaska." Yancy shrugged. "You're pretty good with planes and stuff. Might've ended up running the Base Museum." 

"Jazzy'd still be doin' fashion." he snorts dryly at all of her attempts at men's wear with them as the models. "Or owning her own shop. Never know." 

"Yeah. Kaiju brought humanity together even if that wasn't what they intended." his brother murmured as the intern who had cleaned up Tendo's sick passed them by with a sour look at the sleeping man. Both brothers glared back and the intern scurried away. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

**-December 15, 2016-**

Raleigh spun in a circle as Yancy sipped his hot cocoa in a mug. The annual Alaskan Christmas Market had finally been set up in Anchorage and the lights were glowing. He breathed out the icy air with a happy sigh at the displays. Raleigh snagged his hot cocoa from his brother and they drank together, leaning on each other with soft smiles. A slightly familiar face wandered by looking a little sad and more than a little lost. Raleigh nudged Yancy and pointed out the LOCCENT officer. 

"Wanna go keep him company?"

"Not like we have anything else to do, Rals." Yancy chuckled softly as Tendo stopped in front of a stall with a look of nostalgia firmly in place. "Let's go say hello." 

"Hey." Raleigh brushed against Tendo and the San Fran native jumped a little. "How's the head?" 

"Much better. What is all of this?" Tendo asks, his body language more open that the man knows. 

"A Christmas Market. Rals and I have been doing this since we were kids. Rals was wondering if maybe you'd like to see the good stuff instead of the tourist traps?" Yancy offers as Tendo glances at the tiny painting of the Golden Gate Bridge before Trespasser. He flicks his fingers at Raleigh and he nods as he steers Tendo away. 

"Okay, first we gotta get you a good strong cup of either coffee or cocoa. You want coffee?" he asks as Yancy bargains for the miniature portrait. 

"It's not that crap they that pretend is coffee, right?" Tendo's sharp enough to belong in LOCCENT, that's for sure. 

"Trust me, this is the good stuff. Colombian and they get it from their daughter who lives in country." Raleigh reassures Tendo as he turns to the couple. "This one's a coffee buff." he rattles off in rapid-fire Porteguese mixed with a bit of Colombian Spanish. 

"Ah. We can help with that. How many packages?" The man assesses Tendo carefully but Raleigh knows that it's the wife who makes the deals. 

"They asked how many packages you want. They're about yea big and that wide." Raleigh gestures with his hands to convey a decent sized package. 

"I drink a lot in a day." The wife of the pair laughs as Raleigh translates and pulls out the thickest packages he's seen to date. "Wow."

"She says for a fellow coffee buff, you get half off. It's, uh, about thirty-five but she's willing to haggle." 

"Twenty-eight." 

"Thirty two."

"Thirty and that's my final offer." She grins and takes the money with a happy, toothless grin. The man silently hands Tendo a cup of coffee as they leave. "Oh man. This is beautiful. So happy right now. Can I keep you, brother?" 

"I'm willing to be friends." Raleigh laughs as he meets up with Yancy at the shooting booth. "You play?" 

"In this weather? Nah. You go ahead." Tendo's shivering slightly even with the scalding coffee well in hand. Raleigh digs around in his pocket, making a triumphant noise when he finds the green scarf. 

He wraps it around Tendo's neck, fluffs up the front to shield the man's face and asks, "Is that better?"

"Much. Now I know why you wear your scarves like that." Tendo answers after taking a sip of his coffee. "That is some damn good coffee, Becket." 

"Raleigh or Rals. Yancy'll pretty much answer to just about everything including 'hey you.'" 

"Rals, quit talking shit behind my back. Tryin' ta concentrate here." Yancy fires back as he steadies the tiny pellet gun. The shots are accurate since they've had a _lot_ of practice over the years of rigged games. "Yes!" 

"You've successfully shot three out of five. Which prize would you like?" 

"That one." Yancy points out a Reckoner plushie that both brothers know is for Tendo. "Thanks." 

"On a date?" 

"Nope. My brother and a friend." Yancy rolls his eyes at the vendor and hands the plushie straight to Tendo. 

The man looks down at it, looks at Yancy (who's already onto the next game) and then at Raleigh in confusion, "Does he do that a lot?" 

"Yeah. You get used to it after a while. We're pretty affectionate but keep our hugs to a minimum unless you'd appreciate them." he hums as Yancy hands off his next prize to a tiny little girl who squeals in joy at the _Tacit Ronin_ mini-plush. 

"Oh. How often does he win?"

"You'd think the vendors would quit rigging the games because Yancy knows all the tricks but they never do." Raleigh laughs as the next one is a Hardship action-figure. That one gets handed off to a grumpy-looking teen who brightens a little at the figurine. "He does this every year." 

"What, plays six foot tall Santa?"

"Yup." 

"Huh. Guess you're more than pretty faces and pilot hopefuls." Tendo's raised eyebrow makes him laugh.

"Doesn't everyone have a mask?" he murmurs back as Yancy's collection of prizes continue to get handed off to complete strangers with a brilliant smile. Raleigh hasn't seen his brother like this since before their Mom died. 

"Never thought about it that way, brother." 

"If we showed the world we were as smart as a good third of the interns in the K-Sci division... Well, heroes aren't meant to be really smart." Raleigh taps his head with a self-depreciating smile and accepts Yancy's hug while arranging himself to loop his arm around his brother's shoulder. "You feeling good, Yan?" he hums in French as he gently ruffles the back of Yancy's hair that's growing a little shaggier than his brother normally likes it. 

"Yeah. It feels like maybe I can have fun even with Maman gone. Thanks for dragging me out here, Rals." Yancy smiles softly as he takes in the sight of Tendo looking at the lights with the Reckoner plushie pulled tight to his chest and the mug still steaming from the coffee. 

"Don't have ta thank me Yan. I wanted to do it. Let's go take care of Choi, yeah?"

* * *

**-February 21, 2018-**

Raleigh grins as the shared memory plays out through their link with Tendo looking between them with slight confusion. 

"Mind tellin' me what that was exactly?" Tendo asked as he looked at them over the rim of his cup.

"Ahh, umm, wehaveamindconnection." Raleigh blurts as he buries his face in his hands.

"A what?" 

"What Rals is tryin' to get across is that we have a telepathic connection." Yancy sighs as he gently slaps the back of Raleigh's head before ruffling his already messy hair again. "I don't know if it's just us or what but Hermann knows and now you do. The Marshal might but he hasn't told a soul." 

Tendo's mouth opens, closes and then he shrugs, "I think there might be more pilots with it. Maybe the Gages, D'onofrios and the Marshal plus his old partner but that's about it. Pretty peculiar thing that I've been seeing lately and you two confirmed it's a pilot-only thing." 

"Huh. But you only think they might have it." Yancy finishes thoughtfully. 

"Yeah, just a theory. Is that why you two giggle out of nowhere when one of you is completely on the other side of the Shatterdome?" Tendo reassures them and both of them start giggling. "Just like that!" 

"We use this link for everything. It's got some pretty good mileage to it." Raleigh answers after the giggles have subsided into the link. "You're a damn good friend, Tendo." 

"Uh-huh. You Becket bros sure do make life interesting." Tendo snorts as they reminisce on memories of a certain winged mathematician whose presence is much-missed in The Icebox.

**Author's Note:**

> I might cameo my cat into one of the series. She's the best thing anyone could ask for and I've written a good two-thirds of these with her laying on my chest. Hmm. Might be the reason the Beckets cuddle so much. Feedback is loverly!


End file.
